I'm scared, frustrated, don't know who to go to anymore

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Don't look

Spoiler:

"Nagini, dinner!"

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by alansplace

"Nagini, dinner!"

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder

I know, but that was not the point I was making. I wanted to assess the "damage" that could result from ebook purchases during two months ...

I think some people are a heck o' a lot more damaged than others after two months.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by Skydog

The number of books one purchases does not necessarily relate to the rate one reads books.

This. I got my Kobo on Christmas Day, and have purchased over 100 books for it already in about two months, despite having read about 6 (I'm an avid reader, but I savour every word so I'm not a particularly fast reader). Damn Kobo, your discount codes are addictive!

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by scrapking

This. I got my Kobo on Christmas Day, and have purchased over 100 books for it already in about two months, despite having read about 6 (I'm an avid reader, but I savour every word so I'm not a particularly fast reader). Damn Kobo, your discount codes are addictive!

Coupons are addictive! In January I purchased 300+ books not counting the free stuff.

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Coupons are addictive!

'Specially ones you can use over. And over. And over again!

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by scrapking

This. I got my Kobo on Christmas Day, and have purchased over 100 books for it already in about two months, despite having read about 6 (I'm an avid reader, but I savour every word so I'm not a particularly fast reader). Damn Kobo, your discount codes are addictive!

You do have all/most of those books stored somewhere other than your Kobo though right?

Since getting my Kindle late last year I've now got 150-200 books (more Amazon freebies than anything else), and they are all stored on my computer. The books I've paid for are all backed-up elsewhere too.

Same with any MP3's I've bought from Amazon, saved in more than one place. I like shopping at Amazon and have never had a single problem with them, but I'd never rely on them to store any content I've bought.

The fact the OP seems to have bought a load of digital content from Amazon and apart from having some of the books on his Kindle, has supposedly left the rest to Amazon to store is the thing that gets me from this thread.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Martyd

Maybe this thread is the novel. I sure have spent a lot of time reading it.

I found the ebook to be tedious. The villain, a large internet merchandiser, lacked motivation, and was simply presented as a faceless institution acting for unknowable reasons. This attempt to channel Kafka failed primarily because the protagonist never completely engaged my sympathy.

The plot contains many factual inconsistencies, which might have been explained but were never addressed. To the extent that the facts could be known, the behavior of the agents of the villain were portrayed as concealing them for no reason. This did not advance the plotline toward any understandable resolution.

In fact, it appears that the author reached the same conclusion, and decided to end the story with a bit of deus ex machina that defies the experience of this reader.

In short, this ebook would have benefitted greatly from the services of an editor, which sadly demonstrates one of the big failings of the new digital publishing environment.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Harmon

I found the ebook to be tedious. The villian, a large internet merchandiser, lacked motivation, and was simply presented as a faceless institution acting for unknowable reasons. This attempt to channel Kafka failed primarily because the protagonist never completely engaged my sympathy.

The plot contains many factual inconsistencies, which might have been explained but were never addressed. To the extent that the facts could be known, the behavior of the agents of the villian were portrayed as concealing them for no reason. This did not advance the plotline toward any understandable resolution.

In fact, it appears that the author reached the same conclusion, and decided to end the story with a bit of deus ex machina that defies the experience of this reader.

In short, this ebook would have benefitted greatly from the services of an editor, which sadly demonstrates one of the big failings of the new digital publishing environment.

Great review.

I was going to go with; "It didn't have a very good beat, so I had trouble dancing to it."

[ladyplf]

Maybe the OP is not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but he's not the only one with similar situations. Apparently Amazon suspends plenty of accounts and was even sued for it.

http://www.amazon.com/seller-account...sin=B000X86ZAS

[Orn8one]

Does anyone know did JRW93 sort the 'lock out' by Amazon? I waded through many pages and didn't find out. No more time tonight! I hope I shall sleep having read a nightmare story.....

[volwrath]

Give Consumerist.com a shot..they work wonders

[DebbyS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Which is why, when I buy a book from Amazon, the first thing I do is import it into Calibre, strip the DRM, and back it up safely. I never assume that if I buy a book today, I'll be able to re-download it tomorrow.

Exactly what I was thinking. I use Kindle for PC, and so far have only downloaded free books, but every few days I go in, grab new content, copy to elsewhere on my computer, and run it through Caliber to make epubs to put on my Jetbook Lite. I'll do the same if I ever actually buy a book from them (have to find something I really want first).

As for the main problem, perhaps check with the Better Business Bureau in the city where Amazon HQ is located. Complete honesty will be helpful, but perhaps the main thing is to regain access to purchased material (so you can save it elsewhere).

[overfloater]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

You certainly seem to know an awful lot about the OP, including some facts that I don't recall seeing in the thread up to the point of your comment. Pretty impressive first-and-only post, would it stretch the imagination to think you have some ties with Amazon?

Conspiracy theories are my favorite!

In fact we have both sides in this thread now: you pondering whether I'm an Amazon shill, and someone else accusing others of conveniently stirring up anti-Amazon/pro-B&N sentiment leading up to the new Nook tablet.

I hate to disappoint, but no: I have no connection to Amazon. At least not beyond having thrown countless hundreds of dollars at them over the last 10 years. I'll admit I'm a fan -- hence they get so much of my business -- though the whole eBook DRM/licensing thing leaves me cold, so the OP has my sympathies in that respect regardless of whether or not the rest of his story is entirely kosher.

My only reasons for leaving that absurdly long, bullet-pointed previous post were: (a) I'm a forum whore; (b) I've been around on the internet long enough to spot stories that don't add up; and (c) debunking trolls and fibbers on the web is a favorite hobby. I guarantee that everything I referenced in my post had been previously mentioned by the OP, hence I included several of his prior quotes. Which leads to reason (d) for me making said post: people tend to gloss over, misread, and forget entire sections posts, especially when the threads get long and convoluted and the OP has a tendency to explain things in a not-terribly-logical order. Since the original story had some glaring holes and smelled a little fishy, I wanted to summarize everything up to that point in one place so he had an opportunity to address the disparities. Which he kinda-sorta-maybe did, a bit... ish.

Good looking out on the "first-and-only" post, though. I have lurked here on and off but haven't posted before. (In fact I though I had an account here already but apparently not, so I had to register anew to make the post.) The only reason I dropped by this thread is that I happened to spot the entertaining title, after Google brought me here while searching for an answer as to why my Kindle kept failing to come out of sleep when I was on the subway the previous few mornings (low ambient temperature, apparently -- whodathunkit?). And then, yeah, the troll-debunking area of my brain got triggered...


I have to admit, the OP has been taking a completely different approach from the one I'd have used. Amazon has stated that they found an account to be in violation of their TOS: as many people have stated, they rarely do that without reason. So let's assume that account (whoever's it is) is dead, gone, and never going to get resurrected. The weak link in the logic chain -- where the OP should be focusing his complaints IMO -- is the whole "your account is directly related to another account" part.

• If it's directly related -- close enough to punish the OP by denying him accessed to his purchased digital content -- then there should be no "privacy concerns".
  
• If it's distant enough that "privacy concerns" are an issue -- i.e. Amazon thinks the that violating account belongs to somebody else, not the OP -- then the OP should be able to demand that Amazon prove that/how he is "linked" to the violating account.

IMO, Amazon can't have it both ways. Either the OP is innocent, in which case they have no grounds for shutting down his account; or he's guilty, in which case there are no privacy concerns.

But that's just my suggestion. Forget demanding that they review the case; forget demanding access to your digital content; forget asking them to reopen the account -- they'll just keep feeding you the same line. Instead, the flaw in their logic and justification is right there: the "privacy concerns" is the only element I'd focus all my emails/phone calls on, because that's the only point where they're remotely vulnerable. Regardless of the terms of the digital licenses, I'm fairly sure Amazon and other digital distributors would quickly find themselves in class action lawsuit hell if they thought they could begin revoking licenses en masse at the drop of a hat, with no justification or explanation, thereby milking consumers by forcing them to repurchase the same content. Pretty sure the courts wouldn't look too kindly on that, whatever licenses or TOS you'd agreed to.


Oh and, with all due respect to the other posters, ignore the suggestions to contact the BBB. Overrated, ineffectual, thoroughly powerless, and a complete waste of time. It has no governmental affiliation or regulatory authority. Moreover, nobody pays any attention to complaints lodged there anyway. You'd do just as well to spend your time writing your letter of complaint, sealing it in a corked bottle, and lobbing it into the ocean.

[chilady1]

This thread will now serve as my answer to Why I download EVERY Amazon Kindle book down to my computer. I don't trust ANY COMPANY to keep what I paid for safe. In the event Amazon decides to get "funky" with me and close my account, every book I have purchased is downloaded and imported into Calibre. As someone else mentioned, I have Calibre backed up to (1)external hard drive and (2)Dropbox. I don't even store items on Amazon's cloud.